Adventures of an Aviatrix, in which a pilot travels the skies and the treacherous career path of Canadian commercial aviation, gaining knowledge and experience without losing her step, her licence, or her sense of humour.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Do Not Pass Go. Like Ever.

They rescinded the job offer. It's not my personal hygiene, but the usual thing in aviation: they had a number of captains interviewing with bigger companies and expected to lose more than they lost. So they don't need everyone in the class. Specifically, they don't need me. My paranoia was correct. The chief pilot bounced my e-mail over to HR and the HR person called promptly to deliver the bad news.

The company was completely professional throughout. They sent me all the right documents, flew me to the training base, put me up in a good hotel, provided a car for our use, and treated us with respect. It's possible that they intended all along to only train their favourites from the class. Maybe I said or did something they didn't like. The ones who were trained were younger than me, but had more turbine and more two-crew SOP experience. It's the same thing at every step: you need experience to get experience, whether it's your very first flying job, your first multi job, a two-crew job, a turbine job, a 705 job, a jet job ... whatever you want you can't get it because you don't have it. I just shake my head.

So yeah, sucks. Sorry for leading you on, but well, welcome to my experience. The HR guy had the courtesy to say sorry too.

I've figured it out. I'm expecting my life to be a movie where the protagonist triumphs in the end, but instead it's some sort of weekly sitcom. I can't succeed, because then the story wouldn't make sense in syndication. I have to be forever beaten back, the status quo preserved, every advancement rescinded and reset for next week's episode. It's all I can do to keep from getting cancelled.

I'm surprisingly okay with it. I guess I've stopped believing anything good is ever going to happen, and was so careful not to believe too hard in this, so as not to jinx it, that when it didn't happen I was expecting it. I promise I'm not making this stuff up just to entertain you. This is really the way it works. I don't even think it works worse for me than average. I have met plenty of people in my travels with similarly disastrous career paths. Most of them aren't in aviation anymore.

I was working towards improving my efficiency so I could get everything at home done despite working fourteen hour days. I'd even timeshifted my daily routine to get ready for the early mornings. I'll run with that, be more efficient without having to work 14 hour days. Imagine what I'll get done!

I hadn't had a chance to put in the new bricks that I got from the cow bits guy until today, because it snowed again and covered everything up. Today I could find the garden again so I placed the last bricks. It looks good. I might as well get it to look good before I leave it all behind and go find another job. Maybe I should go on a road trip.

Doesn't surprise me at all. This has been one of the worse career paths since Orville hollered out "clear prop." It is a game of who can fool who... An interviewing exercise of who knows the secret handshake and wink code. The only redeeming quality is the thrill of flight. It is like a smoking hot woman with a psychotic personality. My advise... Don't give up. You have too much invested in this quirky career.

So shocked to read your post. It's clear (as a long, long time lurker) that you are both extremely intelligent and very dedicated and hard working, as well as one of the best writers on the net today. Those qualities WILL eventually get you to where you want to be. Keep up the good fight, and hang in there. You are due for a change in luck (that sounds alarmingly like a fortune cookie). We're all rooting for you !

Heck - write a book and self publish it on Kindle (Google Konrath Blog for a guy who's making about 500k a year self publishing now - we live in interesting times. And no, I don't know him).

Road trip? An excellent premise for a move, but not necessarily for a sitcom, which generally relies on all action taking place in one of three or four sets - allows for quick, cheap production. Having said that, I'd happliy follow along if you break down the metaphor and head out on the road...

Sounds extremely familiar from my field of work as well.They won't provide training unless there's a signed contract with a customer that requires the knowledge, a contract they won't get unless they first provide the training.

So they fully expect employees to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in training expenses out of their own pockets, on their own time which means sacrificing vacation time for training, as courses are of course during office hours), on a salary that's hardly higher than that.And then you get marked for being made redundant and replaced with some younger kid if you don't think that's a good way to live your life.

Ouch. So sorry to hear this, even though I've barely understood one word in ten of your screaming whippet posts. You seem a pretty resilient person so I'm guessing you're going to pick yourself up and dust yourself down and find something else - who knows, maybe Cambodia beckons?

Second, I admire your humility and persistence. My ego is a bit too fragile, so I would find it difficult to stay long in a field where I had to wait like Cinderella for some Prince Charming employer to discover me and slip a glass slipper onto my foot -- eventually I'd bite right through my tongue to keep from shouting "who the f*** are YOU to judge ME!"

Of course, that means that I could never have been an airline pilot. I probably won't ever go back to teaching in a university. I will also likely never be a senior civil servant, CEO of a large company (unless I found it myself), or leader of a political party.

I'm so sorry to hear this Aviatrix. I have had similar situations happen at least twice during my career. I gave up on aviation once and ended up back in the business thinking I won't let it bug me. Bottom line this career path we chose tends to treat it's employees or potentials like crap. Rant over on industry. New rant! Just when I finally had resigned myself to enjoy the flying job and lack of pay I was able to achieve, I lost my medical longterm. So I guess I'm done for good. Bottom line if you really want to fly and can ignore all the B$ in the industry, crappy pay and mistreatment, the job is a blast! Man I'm going to miss sitting above the clouds with Atc squawking in my headsets! I hope you find your happy place in aviation!

The numbers all say that a pilot shortage is coming. But of course the pertinent question is, "How long can you tread water?"

OK, this time on the Merry-Go-Roundwas a practice lap. Maybe the next one will be too. But if you follow Cap'n Dave's advice, stay airborne, and keep trying, one of these times around you WILL snag the Brass Ring.

You've got lots of friends out here among the Intertubes, lady. Bring us along for the ride so we can keep rootin' for ya'.

SO sorry. I've been lurking here daily for the past few months and can only imagine your disappointment.

I'm not sure if anything I say will make you feel better. My only advice is to not take this setback personally. I know, it stinks to get so far along in the hiring process, only to have the "job offer" rescinded.

Been there, done that, got my ego (and bank account) bruised big-time. Ouch. Then a few days after the rejection, a much better job offer materialized out of the blue. What had initially seemed like a setback was really a blessing in disguise.

I now work on the other side of the hiring table. And I can remember way too many times where my employer invested a lot of money and time in a prospective employee, only to pass on hiring them at the last minute. Sometimes funding for the position was cut, or a department was reorganized, or any of many other situations outside of our control cropped up. That's how big, impersonal organizations function, like it or no.

So don't take it personally. And please, please don't give up. Have faith that your day will come.

Don't second guess yourself. As long as you don't KNOW the exact reason you're just beating yourself up. I'[m 74 and remember when starting out in the working world saying the exact thing - You need experience to get experience. What happens actually though is that *someone* will take a chance based on a hunch, personalit, whatever - and then you start to grow. Hang in there - you have a LOT to offer and never , never forget that. A positive attitude goes a long way.

As so many others have noted, I too amsorry that this excercise did not turn into a real job. At least you were treated with a measure of class, and far better than some other places. Hang in there, Pleeease. Your writings (and learning and understanding methods)suggest exactly the kind of woman that I want in the pointy end of my next airplane flight. I have no idea what your logbook looks likem but I like the way you think, learn, process and produce. If I operated an airline, I've want you on my line. Thanks for your posts and hang, hang HANG in there! -C.